Itunes radio error message.

music_is_her_name wrote:

......I know Apple take their software seriously but as they move into a place on the home entertainment 'critical path' (yes there is some irony in that...) Apple development needs to balance stability and reliability versus 'nice to haves': e.g., who cares how many streams exist in a particular genre?

Reliability and stability are key.

But, there is something which is even MORE important than that. And that is both the willingness and the ability to rapidly analyze and respond to problem areas such as this which typically arise from time to time.

This is crucial if one wants to play with the big boys in an industry such as this. Because nobody is going to want to build or purchase gear based on Apple technology if problems such as these aren't going to be dealt with swiftly. Why? Because the REAL players eat this sort of thing for lunch. There is no space or place in this field for dilettantes.

One can be laissez-faire about such things when we are pumping out iPods for the kids, but when you want to try to foist that same technology into a serious and growing industry such as High-End Audio and Home Entertainment...then it's time to spit out the bubble gum and behave as though you deserve to be there.

In this case, as is being demonstrated by the (almost lack of a) response we are receiving, Apple is giving the appearance of either apathy....or incompetence. This engenders neither reliability nor stability. It screams a lack of the former and implies the absence of the latter.

I am also an Apple shareholder. Have been since the IPO. I find it quite troubling that Apple would code both iTunes and Remote in such a way as they have. Even the local village idiot could have looked at this arrangement and predicted we would wind up where we are today.

To say all of this is inexcuseable is being diplomatic at best. Personally.....I can think of more accurate adjectives.

....sT

So I just spent 31 minutes on the phone w/ Apple support.

They have reopened my case.

We also tried to debug the issue by deleting and resetting some of my System Config and iTunes Config files (DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME) but that did not fix the problem. Anyway they have updated the file to contain our tests and will continue to try to address the issue.

I plan to talk with them ['they' are actually people with names who live on the west coast and who work on Sundays and who are helpful] every day to see what's happening.

Peace!

music_is_her_name wrote:

So I just spent 31 minutes on the phone w/ Apple support.

They have reopened my case.

We also tried to debug the issue by deleting and resetting some of my System Config and iTunes Config files (DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME) but that did not fix the problem. Anyway they have updated the file to contain our tests and will continue to try to address the issue.

I plan to talk with them ['they' are actually people with names who live on the west coast and who work on Sundays and who are helpful] every day to see what's happening.

Peace!

Do they not understand it is a global problem effecting thousands, if not more users? Why would they have you check files? Do they think everyone's Sys Config and iTunes Config files all got messed up at the same time?

I appreciate them speaking with you but until someone at Apple acknowledges that everyone is having the problem it will never get resolved.

music_is_her_name wrote:

They have acknowledged and do understand it's a widespread problem.

How that does or does not impact the solution method we will see.

11 days ago iTunes radio worked fine. Nothing changed on my system (or I'm sure most everyone elses). The "solution" has to be on Apples end. To even suggest that people manipulate files on their computer seems ridiculous.

I agree with bru2...if apple understands the problem and is working on it, then why would they close your case? And then require you to call to reopen it? This is clearly a problem on their end and they need to address it. The support folks on the phone may be very nice, but if they can't escalate the problem to those who can address it, then it's not helpful. The bug is theirs, not ours.

I have requested a call regarding my case at 10 am tomorrow (Monday EDT) using the Apple Express web app.

I will do my best to express everyone's collective ire and suggest that they read this thread and others like it.

If I receive anything substantive, I'll post it.

Until then, good night.

Don't look now but it is almost working for me.

I was able to get all the categories to display the streams with only a few non connect messages. And when they were trying to connect it didn't immediately give the error message, it kept trying to connect for quite a while.

Will it work the next time is the question.

bru2...

yes it works now for me, too...but spuriously....the support/developer person I was talking to is also tested iTunes 10.6--a beta version--and said that although he did not get the error message in 10.6 it seemed to 'hang' upon cantacting the radio service....anyway, it looks to me like the radio contact is where the bug is and it seems tht Apple is treating the issue seriously...

Over the last hour or so I opened and closed iTunes several times. I was just able to get all 25 categories to display the streams without a single error. Some displayed immediately, others stayed on Refreshing for a while. But all displayed with no errors. That's a good sign.

No.....still not working here. While it did go further than has been usual...it ultimately still failed.

So, while one might be tempted to award Brownie Points for apparent effort, that fact is that close enough is not good enough...and failure is still failure.

....sT

Semi-solution,

IF, and I state "IF", you manage to connect to your favourite genre playlist, create a new playlist on the left, then select all streams from the list and drag them into your newly created playlist.

That way you no longer have to connect via the radio dropdowns. Worked like a charm for me 🙂

Well it's back to not working. At all. Interesting how it worked almost perfect last night into early this morning (local time obviously) and now it's no good at all. Could it be related to traffic?

C'mon Apple get this resolved.

bru2 wrote:

Well it's back to not working. At all. Interesting how it worked almost perfect last night into early this morning (local time obviously) and now it's no good at all. Could it be related to traffic?

C'mon Apple get this resolved.

I was wondering about this, but at the time I was able to get it working it was in the middle of the days on a weekend (North American, Eastern Time Zone). I'd assume that's a fairly high traffic time. It seems completely random.

RE the playlst tip, I luckily had a playlist with a few of my stations. Last time genres were working I added more. But, I find I seem to get getting a lot more buffering errors listening to streams than I ever had before this problem.

If anyone has specific observations or suggestions which might help debug the issue, please suggest. Also please omit general ********, whining and overt aggression. Also, please be concise.

I have a 10:00 AM EDT call scheduled w/ Apple support to discuss this issue. My observations nd summary of other significant points to date:

1. The problem seems to me to reside in the code that contacts radio stations. The code has changes since the last version since it now adds a stream count to each radio genre that is refreshed.

2. Some genres fail more consistently than others. This has been noted earlier in the thread.

3. ANY attempt to connect to iTunes via remote causes this error to occur and hangs the whole system. It is not possible to dismiss the error from the remote.

4. This problem has existed for a LONG TIME. Given it's central location in Apple's media management efforts I/we would have expected it to be debugged earlier. OR AT LEAST some offocial posting from Apple regarding the bug, solution efforts and prognosis.

music_is_her_name wrote:

If anyone has specific observations or suggestions which might help debug the issue, please suggest. Also please omit general ********, whining and overt aggression. Also, please be concise.

I have a 10:00 AM EDT call scheduled w/ Apple support to discuss this issue. My observations nd summary of other significant points to date:

1. The problem seems to me to reside in the code that contacts radio stations. The code has changes since the last version since it now adds a stream count to each radio genre that is refreshed.

2. Some genres fail more consistently than others. This has been noted earlier in the thread.

3. ANY attempt to connect to iTunes via remote causes this error to occur and hangs the whole system. It is not possible to dismiss the error from the remote.

4. This problem has existed for a LONG TIME. Given it's central location in Apple's media management efforts I/we would have expected it to be debugged earlier. OR AT LEAST some offocial posting from Apple regarding the bug, solution efforts and prognosis.

I could give specifics on times that it's down. But that's been 95% of the time over the last 2 weeks. In fact, this past weekend, mid-day here, was the only times I have been able to open the Classic Rock and Oldies genre in about 2 weeks.

As mentioned above, my only other input is that I also get a lot of buffering going on that never seemed to happen before. And stations take forever to load sometimes. There is no network issues at my location, this is strictly an issue with the iTunes radio. Is anyone else having buffering issues?